Entry 1: An Awakening, and Then...
A youth by the name of Kira Yamato wondered just what death felt like. Was it a slow, agonising thing? Was it quick and painless when one shunted off the mortal coil?
He wondered this, mainly because he believed that, right now, by all accounts, he was dead.
After all, how likely was someone to survive an exploding Mobile Suit at point blank range?
Curiously, right now, he felt like he was floating on the surface of a calm lake. In a way, it was rather pleasant.
Yet, the turmoil in his heart remained. Tolle Koenig was dead. His childhood friend, Athrun Zala, had effectively left him for dead (still up in the air about that part), after Kira had inadvertently killed on of Athrun's friends.
War just sucked, hands down. What was it even good for? Just a whole bunch of old people and extremist rich folks arguing while kids were thrown at each other to die.
Absentmindedly, Kira wondered if this was what going down the Sanzu River was like. He had been there for what felt like a long while, and strangely enough he believed he could feel his sense of touch returning.
From that, he could safely say he felt both cold and wet. Slowly, he tried to open his eyes, as pain washed over him.
Above him was blue skies and white clouds as far as he could see.
"Where... am I?" he asked the endless sky. The slight movement, however, only served to cause him to topple in his floating, and briefly submerging and reemerging from the water. Kira gasped for breath while every muscle in his body cried out in pain, yet all the same, he noticed something after accidentally taking in a mouthful of water.
It wasn't salty. This wasn't ocean water.
"What? How..." Kira barely managed to utter. Was he blown inland? That island could not have been that big, could it? Ignoring the pain that coursed through his body, Kira spotted the nearest shore and swam as best he could to it.
Once he finally broke free of the water, he collapsed onto the the sand and rocks, panting heavily. His muscles felt as if they were on fire, his lungs as if they had been filled with cement.
Yet, the air stood out to him. There was no salty brine to be smelt. Instead, there was the smell of lush vegetation and forestry. Kira looked around as best he could, and saw, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a dense forest not too far from him.
"What on earth?" he muttered, forcing himself back on his feet. "This... this can't be the same place Athrun and I fought, could it?"
Gripping his left arm in pain and fear, Kira Yamato slowly began walking towards the treeline, in hopes of finding any sign of civilisation.
Barely ten minutes in, and Kira was already in excruciating pain. Briefly, he wondered if this was what it felt like to be set aflame.
A misplaced step caused Kira to fall to the ground, making the pain considerably worse.
"Damn it... can I not go on?" he curse quietly. "Is this... really the end?"
Slowly, yet surely, he felt everything going cold. Perhaps it was just a sense of hypothermia, but that really wasn't much better in hindsight.
Before his consciousness could slip entirely, he felt something poke at his side. Slowly, he tried to open his eyes again, and see just who or what was poking him.
Fundamentally speaking, it was a young girl with blonde hair, dressed in black, with a small red ribbon in her hair, and almost red eyes. "Hey, are you dead?" the girl asked.
Several things about this girl struck Kira as odd. So many, in fact, that he wasn't sure what was stranger amongst them. First, the girl was floating a few feet off the ground. This, logically, made no sense. Second, the girl had her arms outstretched, either replicating the crucifixion of Christ or the Japanese writing of the number ten.
He found it weird that his mind went there, of all places.
"I'm... not yet," he strained.
"Is that so?" the girl said. "Could you hurry it up, then? I'm kinda hungry."
Kira let out a small groan. "Great. The first new person I meet, and it's a flying cannibal. What are the odds?"
"Probably more likely than you think," the girl answered. "Well, if you're in no rush, do you mind if I speed it along?"
"What are you..?" Kira saw as the girl floated higher into the air, and began charging energy in the palms of her hands. Instincts took over, and Kira barely managed to roll out of the way as sphere of energy struck where he once was.
"Eh? You're still gonna fight?" the girl asked. "I thought you had given up already."
"I can't... afford to give up," Kira said, struggling to his feet. "Even if I don't know where I am... Even if I don't know what's going on... I keep moving forward!"
The girl's expression shifted to one that seemed to realise something. "Ohh! You're an Outsider!" she exclaimed. "That just means I can skip the waiting, then!"
Another series of bolts flew from her hands, which Kira barely managed to dodge. "That doesn't make sense!" he yelled. Then again, nothing made sense right now. How was the girl flying? Why was she so okay with the idea of eating him? Was that actual magic she was firing, of was it some hidden weapon? How was the girl flying?!
Somehow, that last one really stuck to his mind. Kira thought about fighting back, but not only was his pain making it hard to draw his firearm, but the moral implications of firing a gun at a little girl, despite the fact that said girl was trying to kill him, weighed heavily on his mind.
Then, like a saving grace, the sound of something flying through the air at incredible speeds was heard, and before Kira could look for the source...
"Flying Nightbug... KICK!" someone yelled, and the blonde haired girl immediately took a flying kick to the face.
The one doing the kicking was, either surprisingly or unsurprisingly (Kira wasn't sure which he was feeling at the moment), a girl with green hair, dressed in black puffy shorts, a white shirt, black shoes, and had, among other things, a pair of bug-antennae on her head.
And, naturally, even after the kick landed, the newcomer was flying.
"Rumia, we talked about this!" the newcomer yelled at the blonde haired girl. "We are not to kill an Outsider if we're the first ones they meet! Don't you recall how rarely that happens?"
"Is that so?" the blonde girl, Rumia, asked.
"It is!" the new girl yelled.
Kira Yamato, deciding he had had enough with consciousness for one day, collapsed to the ground then and there.
"Hey! Guy!" the newcomer continued to yell. "You better not be dropping dead on us, you hear! Seriously, Rumia's a messy eater, and I don't want to have to see that again!"
Kira, however, could barely work up the strength to reply, as his conscious gave out, and the world faded to black.
Warmth. The smell of tea and flowers. A slight breeze. These were the first things Kira picked up on that told him he wasn't dead yet. Groaning as he woke, he deeply wished that everything he had just witnessed was some strange fever dream.
"Ah! He's waking up!" an all too familiar voice said, though Kira was thankful to recognise it as the one who had saved him. "Yuuka-san!"
"I heard, Wriggle. I heard," a new voice responded. This once (surprisingly, also female) sounded much older than the first.
Slowly, Kira forced his eyes open, and found himself face to face with the antennae-sporting girl.
"Hey there, buddy. You still with us?" the girl, Wriggle, he assumed, asked.
"S...somehow," Kira barely managed to say. "Where am I?"
Somewhere in the room, a door opened, and Kira heard a new set of footsteps approaching. "You are currently in my house, young human," the new voice, who he believed to be this 'Yuuka-san', said. "You can imagine my surprise when Wriggle came knocking, carrying an unconscious Outsider on her back."
"You... carried me?" Kira asked.
"You weren't that heavy, trust me," came the reply. "I'm Wriggle Nightbug, by the way. What's your name?"
'Wriggle Nightbug' struck Kira as a strange name, but he put that aside for now. After all, most Coordinators had strange names themselves. "I'm... Kira Yamato," he responded. "You... were the one that saved me, right?"
"Guess so," Wriggle answered. "Sorry about Rumia. She's... yeah, she's just kinda dumb."
Kira flashed back briefly to the blonde haired girl from before. "Why was she so... intent on eating me?" he asked.
"I'm guessing you've never met a youkai before, have you?" Yuuka asked. "That's just something we do."
"Youkai?" Kira repeated. He was fairly familiar with the term; youkai were a sort of demon that originated from Japan in olden times. "And, did you say 'we'? Then, does that mean..."
"Ah. You're a sharp one, aren't you?" Yuuka stated, finally coming into Kira's line of sight. "Indeed. Both Wriggle and myself are youkai, though of different types."
Kira looked at the woman known as Yuuka, and felt himself almost transfixed. She was tall; very tall, dressed in a white shirt, red vest and skirt, with a yellow ribbon tied around her neck. Her hair was the sort of green that reminded Kira of a grassy field at noon, and her eyes the red of a setting sun. Kira was still quite young, and (painfully) inexperienced when it came to women, but even he would be remiss not to call this woman anything other than 'beautiful'.
"Ah, but I haven't properly introduced myself, have I?" she continued. "I am Yuuka Kazami, the youkai that presides over flowers. Wriggle, on the other hand, is one that controls insects."
"Flowers and... insects?" Kira questioned. Well, if ever there was a reason for two people to get along. "Even when you say all this, it's... way over my head."
"Understandable, young man," Yuuka said. "For today, at least, focus on healing. We can deal with everything else later." Gently, Yuuka set down a saucer with a cup of warm tea on it. "Here, something to help the pain."
Kira gently lifted the tea cup, his muscles aching as he did, and sipped gingerly. It was warming, gentle. He could feel a wave of relief washing over him. "Thank you, miss Yuuka," he said. "Not to... repeat a question or anything, but... where are we? I mean, in the large scheme of things."
"Ah, you must mean our 'world', correct?" Yuuka asked. "Currently, you are in a land called 'Gensokyo'."
'Gensokyo'. If his understanding of Japanese was right, that translated into something along the lines of 'land of illusion'. That still left a lot of questions, though. "How... did I get here?"
"Can't say," Wriggle answered in Yuuka's place. "There's a lot of 'ways' into Gensokyo, though generally, it can be attributed to Yukari Yakumo messing around with Boundaries."
"I... think I might just stop asking questions," Kira concluded. "This is already going way over my head, and that part of my body still hurts like hell."
"Still in pain?" Yuuka asked. "Well, healing isn't quite either of our strong points. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a few broken bones, considering the state you were in."
Kira's mind lingered on the phrase 'the state you were in', as memories flooded back to him like a burst dam.
Yuuka seemed to notice this shift in his mood. "Perhaps it might be a good idea to take you over to Eientei," she said. "They'd be able to fix you up better than I could."
"Would we even be able to get there before nightfall?" Wriggle asked. "We'd have to go through the Bamboo Forest of the Lost for that."
The two continued their conversation, leaving Kira feeling rather bewildered. Slowly, he reclined himself back into the bed. "I think... I'll just sleep this off," he muttered. "Maybe this is all just a bad dream. Or it's purgatory. Either or."
Slowly, he closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.
Suffice it to say, but it wasn't a dream, and the pain of a self-diagnosed broken arm and leg told him it 'probably' wasn't purgatory either.
That morning proved to be more painful than the previous time he woke up, though Yuuka did make sure to reapply some bandages and fix up some splints.
Under normal circumstances, he might have felt a sting in his pride at being hefted over Wriggle's shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but given his circumstances, he managed to ignore it easily enough.
What did give him pause, however, was Yuuka's garden. No, perhaps 'garden' was too weak a word for it. This was the kind of flower field that put meadows to shame.
It was sunflowers as far as the eye could see and beyond. A field of infinite yellow.
"Breathtaking, isn't it?" Wriggle asked. "Folks in Gensokyo call it the 'Garden of the Sun' for a reason."
"I can see," Kira said in awe. "The first minutes of sunrise must be magical here."
Off to the side, Yuuka gave a kind smile. "I'm glad you think so," she said. "Not many Gappies come around here, and those that do are the 'badly trying to be heroes' kind, hoping to kill me."
Kira gave the flower youkai an odd look. "Gappies?" he asked. "Is that a catch-all term for outsiders?"
"More like a derogative," Yuuka answered. "It's what we use to describe those Outsiders that use coming to Gensokyo as an excuse to live out their power fantasies. Try not to be like those guys, alright?"
"I'll... keep that in mind," Kira muttered. "You said something about a bamboo forest yesterday, right? How long would it take to get there?"
"It's on the other side of the human village, and we'd need to find the guide first," Yuuka answered. "As for how long, you don't have to worry. Flying is the fastest method of travel here."
"I'm sorry, did you just say..." Kira didn't have time to finish that thought, before both Yuuka and Wriggle lifted off the ground. There was no scientific explanation for it. No obvious source of propulsion. All he could conclude was that gravity had decided to take the day off all of a sudden.
He vaguely recalled the same thought happening with that Rumia girl, but it was just as strange now as it was then. "If I was to ask how your doing this," he spoke up, "should I assume the answer will be 'because magic'?"
"Of course that would be our answer," Wriggle said. "That's just how Gensokyo is."
Kira made sure to suppress a sigh. "In way over my head," he said quietly.
The human village, unoriginal though that name may be, seemed to be a rather peaceful place. At least, when one ignored the strange stares that came with being carried on the back of someone almost half your size.
Fortunately for Kira, he was still in too much pain to really care for those stares, though he did feel mildly unnerved by the whispers that seemed to be directed at Yuuka.
"Geez. You'd think they'd never seen her before," Wriggle muttered. "It's like this every time for her."
"What is?" Kira asked.
"The glares, the stares, the whispers," Wriggle began listing off. "Take your pick. How did Yuuka-san seem to you when you first saw her?"
Intrigued, Kira gave the question as much thought as he could. "I would go for 'mature and calm'," he answered. "Perhaps even 'motherly'. Not someone I'd want to actively anger, if only because they're so kind."
"See? You get it!" Wriggle exclaimed. "However, almost everyone else, human and youkai, sees her as someone to be feared. I mean, sure, she's crazy strong, but she doesn't go out of her way to torment people like most youkai!"
Kira allowed himself a warm smile. "You care for her a lot, don't you?"
"Of course I do," Wriggle answered. "Even if you look past the simple fact that Yuuka-san's sort of a big sister to us small-fry, I'm a bug youkai, and she's a flower youkai; camaraderie was kinda natural for us."
Kira couldn't help but chuckle at that, even with the pain of what might have been a few broken ribs.
"Ah, there she is," Yuuka spoke up. Kira followed her gaze, and saw a very... peculiar looking person.
Actually, that was a bit of a moot point; everyone in Gensokyo so far looked peculiar. Regardless, this new person was a tall woman with pure white hair, a white shirt, and red pants that had what looked to be talismans stitched all over them. There was something... other about this one. Kira liked to think he was good at reading people, and he could tell after having spent more than 24 hours with Wriggle and Yuuka that they had a different sort of aura to them, yet this one... she didn't so much 'straddle the line' of human and non-human, as much as she forced them apart to set up bed and breakfast.
"Well, ain't you an odd sight," the woman said, noticing Yuuka. "What brings the flower youkai, her plus one, and..." she quickly glanced over at Kira, "an Outsider here?"
"That last point is the answer in and of itself, Fujiwara no Mokou," Yuuka responded. "As you can see, Wriggle found him quite beaten up."
"So you need a guide to Eientei, then?" Mokou asked, before chuckling slightly. "Well, ya came to the right gal, then." She waved in Kira's direction. "Yo, new kid! Still holding together?"
"I... guess so," Kira responded. "It's a pleasure to meet you, miss... Mokou, right?"
"Polite one, ain't ya?" Mokou commented. "Just 'Mokou' is fine, kid. Now, hows about we get you to those doctors?"
Kira quickly picked up on why they called it the 'Bamboo Forest of the Lost'. Were it not for Mokou's guidance, he wouldn't have been surprised if they were lost for the rest of eternity.
Eientei, as they called it, looked to be some old fashioned Japanese palace of sorts. A very regal looking place to live, in any case.
"Well, here's my stop," Mokou said. "You folks take care, and if you see that princess, could ya pass on the usual message?"
"Of course," Yuuka responded. "The usual being 'GFY'?"
"You know me well, Flower Power," Mokou chuckled. "Be seeing ya, kid."
As Mokou left, Kira was saddled with a feeling of bewilderment. "She was... interesting."
"Anyone would be, after living for upwards of 1300 years," Yuuka answered.
Kira gave pause at that casual statement. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Oh yeah, Mokou's one of the few people in Gensokyo who's legit immortal," Wriggle stated. "She and the other immortal who lives here, Kaguya, have a sort of long standing rivalry. Last I heard, the death counts were 498 to 500, Kaguya's favour."
"Actually, they evened out at 500 during last spring," Yuuka chimed in.
This only left Kira more confused. "Pardon my language," he started, "but I can't help but think that Gensokyo is generally fucked in the head."
The two youkai looked mildly surprised, before laughing. "Well, at least your tongue has some barbs to it," Yuuka commented. "Well, if you ever meet with the Hakurei shrine maiden, I'd suggest keeping that opinion to yourself. She's... a bit odd when it comes to people badmouthing Gensokyo."
"Shrine maidens are the top of the food chain, got it," Kira said. "Somehow, that's not the weirdest thing I've heard all day."
"See? You'll fit in just fine," Yuuka said, before finally guiding them inside.
"Well, all things considered, he's doing remarkably well," the silver haired doctor, Yagokoro Eirin, said. "Given a day or two rest, as well as some of our medications, and he'll be up and about in no time."
"See? Good as new!" Wriggle exclaimed from Kira's bedside.
"No kidding," Kira muttered. "I already feel like most of the pain is gone."
"Then it was the right call to bring you here, then," Yuuka said. "You have my thanks, doctor."
"It is no problem at all," Eirin responded. "Although, I must say I'm surprised that you, of all people, would bring an Outsider in for treatment. I was always under the impression you disliked them greatly."
"Only the ones we'd unaffectionately call Gappies, I assure you," Yuuka answered. "Besides, it's not often I get to be on the first impression list."
Eirin gave a small chuckle. "I suppose so. Now, can I ask you and miss Nightbug to leave the room for a moment? Patient confidentiality and all that."
"Understood," Yuuka said. "Come along, Wriggle."
"Got it," Wriggle responded. "See you soon, Kira!"
Kira waved as the two youkai left the room. "You'd think those two were family," he said, "considering how close they are."
"Kazami's kindness is an often overlooked aspect of her personality, that is true," Eirin stated. "Now, if you don't mind, young man, I'd like to confirm a few things."
"I mean, it's already been established that I'm an Outsider, right?" Kira asked. "What more is there? Blood type?"
Eirin gave a light, if slightly ominous, laugh. "Oh no, nothing like that. I can get that from the tests. No, what I want to know..." a sudden chill filled the room, as Eirin's glare turned icy, "is why you smell so much like a Lunarian."
Kira felt a chill down his spine. "Lu...narian?" he repeated hesitantly. "What are you talking about?"
"You can think of me as a medical god," Eirin said. "The amount of operations I can't perform to perfection are next to zero. With just the slightest amount of magic, I can see your very DNA, and what I'm seeing is not natural. So, I'll ask again: What are you?"
Kira thought about the question, while also trying to ignore the looming sense of dread that seemed to emanate from the doctor. "... How much time do you have?" he asked. "Because this might take a while."
"By all means, take your time."
So, Kira explained as much as he could. From the difference between Naturals and Coordinators; those of natural birth and those who were genetically altered upon conception, to how he'd lived most of his life on Heliopolis, and how a war had broken out between Earth Alliance and the PLANTs.
Suffice it to say, it did manage to leave Eirin a little confused.
"Space colonies?" she asked. "This is the first I've heard of any. When did that happen?"
"Around the start of the Cosmic Era, I believe," Kira said. "I guess Gensokyo is that closed off as to not know about it?"
"No, that's not the problem," Eirin said. "You said that the year was 71CE, correct? Well, every Outsider I've met has claimed it to be the 21st century AD, and that's not mentioning the whole 'colonising the moon' business, since the Lunar Capital wouldn't exactly take that lying down."
"The... 21st century?!" Kira exclaimed.
"More specifically, I believe that Usami girl claimed it was the year 20XX. Heavens only knows what the 'XX' stands for."
"I... wow," he muttered. "I might need to lie down for now. My brain just... can't keep up anymore."
"I don't blame you for that," Eirin said. "To have been thrown through both space and time... I can only wonder what that boundary youkai is thinking."
In a place unknown to many, a young girl with pink hair quietly sipped her tea. A warm breeze swept in through the open door, filling the room with a sense of springtime wonder.
From a different room, a sound that could only be described as 'the tearing of the fabric of reality like it was Velcro', and could only barely be written as 'Vroop' was heard. From around the corner of the door, a blonde haired woman dressed in white and purple stepped inside.
"The die has been cast to the winds of fate," the blonde haired one said, sitting down opposed to the pink haired woman. "Just as you requested."
"Thank you ever so much, miss Yakumo," the pink haired one responded kindly. "I honestly can't say I had a plan going forward if you didn't agree to this."
"It's no trouble, really," Yakumo Yukari, youkai of boundaries, replied. "At the very least, I get to see an interesting play unfold. I do not lose anything from this deal of ours." Yukari picked up the cup that had been set out for her, and sipped lightly from it. "After all, it's not every day you meet someone as unique as you in the multiverse; a veritable Looper."
"Truly, it's a curse," the unnamed woman replied. "To have been sent back in time two years, to the start of the first PLANT-Alliance war, and for the point in which time loops back arournd to be constantly moving sooner and sooner..."
"A lesser human would have been broken long ago."
The woman gave a small, amused laugh. "Come now, miss Yakumo. You give me too much credit." A sad look glazed over her face briefly. "Believe me, I broke a long time ago. It's just that what's left of me is still trying to do what's best for them."
Yukari chuckled. "As always, the people from universes like this are quite impressive. I do trust, however, that you're aware of..."
"I know, Yukari," the woman cut in. "The man I loved... He died worlds ago. The one you brought to Gensokyo, as much as I wish otherwise, is just one that shares his face and history."
"So long as you understand that, then all shall be well," Yukari finally said after a long pause. "I will apologise, however, for my timing. I'm sure those children would have preferred it if their friend didn't almost die in a mobile suit explosion."
"They'll pull through," the woman replied. "They're the crew of the Archangel, after all. I'm sure even the three members of Team Zala will do fine."
Yukari gave another chuckle. "You are remarkably strong. Then again, I suppose you have to be, don't you, Lacus Clyne?"
A/N:
You know, I actually find it tough to write for Gundam and Touhou. I think it's something about the translation of the mobile suits in the former and the sheer amount of characters in the later, personally. But, anyway...
A new project, and already ending a chapter on a twist like this.
Well, not much more to say, so let's press on!
